1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to toothbrush assemblies with sound generating functions, and more particularly, the present invention relates to a toothbrush assembly with a sound generating function for encouraging a young child to brush his or her teeth or for providing excitement to any user, in a wide age range from a child to an adult, with a voice message, a musical tone, or the like generated by the toothbrush assembly in accordance with the tooth-brushing movement of the user.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional toothbrush assemblies aimed at young children have various character pictures or figures on the holders thereof so as to keep the young children interested with the pictures or figures while brushing their teeth. Also, known various toothbrush assemblies aimed at users from children to adults have improved their usability. Furthermore, based on the recent miniaturization of electronic components, each of the known toothbrush assemblies has an electronic circuit incorporated therein for playing back music or the like in association with the tooth-brushing movement of a user. An example toothbrush assembly disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,341,230 generates a sound when a user operates an additional switch disposed on the holder of thereof or plays back music by turning on the switch when brushing begins.
However, the conventional toothbrush assemblies without sound generating functions do not encourage young children to brush their teeth at all, and also the use of only character pictures or figures on the holders is neither entertaining nor interesting and, unfortunately, they sometimes become uninteresting and boring.
Also, in the foregoing toothbrush assembly having the switch which operates in association with the above-described tooth-brushing movement, the moving direction of the switch is limited to one direction, and accordingly, the toothbrush assembly is not responsive to the complicated tooth-brushing movement of a user.